BRIPDORT CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
Spring Concert, March 24
United Church, Bridport
Review by: Bruce Upton

THE sun is shining, the weather has warmed up, and Bridport's Spring season of music and the arts is in full swing.

An appreciative audience in the United Church listened to four wonderful and uplifting pieces under the confident baton of their conductor Robert Jacoby.

Elgar's "Serenade for Strings" took off with confident, warm playing at a cracking pace.

The larghetto's sweeping phrases were astutely given, with lower violin and viola tones coming through beautifully. In the dashing finale, attention to dynamic markings gave this most familiar of music an exciting edge worthy of a professional orchestra.

Jennifer Holt and Rebecca King were violin and viola soloists in Mozart's Symphonia Concertante (K364), and their performance was the unquestioned highlight of the evening.

An especially close empathy between them meant their phrases blended seamlessly into each other, and also with the orchestral tutti passages.

As usual the Chamber Orchestra supported unobtrusively so that the soloist highlights were never submerged, and the woodwind, sparingly scored, was particularly effective.

Jennifer Holt's perfect toning and exact phrasing made this item a real treat for the audience.

Elgar's "Elegy", a short, slow piece full of rich, plangent chords, provided a calm and reflective respite before the final item in the programme - Haydn's "Mercury" Symphony.

This, by way of contrast, was full of dash and fury. The chamber orchestra demonstrated its expertise here to good effect.

The busy passages were clear, even in the very fast finale section.

Upper strings were especially together, and beautifully supported by the wind section - some tricky horn passages were well played. Cellos and double bass kept time in some busy sections requiring nimble finger work and a close eye on the conductor's baton.

Two things in particular made the concert memorable for me.

Firstly, the tone and general quality of the string playing from the Bridport Chamber Orchestra is so good that it is a real pleasure to hear them in works scored for strings alone.

Secondly, that the additional use of a couple of horns or trumpets, a couple of flutes or oboes and a bassoon gives such a dramatic contrast in timbre that it makes a perfect foil to the strings on their own.

It's a winning combination for a concert programme and should be repeated!